It is a high standard of administrative efficiency which we have set up. No single county so far as we know, measures up to it at present. No county, apparently, without compulsion from the central state government, has even made any serious progress along these lines except at the instigation of a privately supported research bureau or tax association. County administrative organization and procedure is virgin soil for constructive civic effort.
But administrative procedure is not more important to county betterment than the personnel of the organization. “Politics” in administration has come to mean the antithesis of scientific standards. Mediocrity and incompetency sit enthroned where party expediency takes precedence over the interests of the whole county.
THE MERIT SYSTEM
Therefore abolish “politics!” No single county of its own initiative has taken a more important step toward that end than Los Angeles, California, under its special home-rule charter, which is not—able for the advanced character of its civil service provisions. Among other things it creates a bureau of efficiency, consisting of the civil service commission (three members), the secretary thereof and the auditor of the county. To quote the language of the charter, the duty of this bureau is that of “determining the duties of each position in the classified service, fixing standards of efficiency, investigating the methods of operation of the various departments and recommending to the board of supervisors and department heads measures for increasing individual, group and departmental efficiency, and providing for uniformity of competition and simplicity of operation.” The commission is required to “ascertain and record the comparative efficiency of employees in the classified service” and has power after a hearing, to “dismiss from the service those who fall below the standards of efficiency established.”[26]
With a combination of a structure of government designed to fix general responsibility, an administrative procedure designed to let daylight into public business and an administrative personnel free to serve the interests of the public, the people of the county will be in a position to just about get what they want, within the measure of power granted to the locality under the laws of the state.
[24] “The Making of the County Budget,” Westchester County Research Bureau, 1912.
[25] Excellent results have been obtained by the purchasing agent of Onondaga County, New York, Mr. Frank X. Wood.
[26] For full text of provisions, see Charter of Los Angeles (Appendix B).